


show your hand

by mandadoration



Series: Settle the Debt [4]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mechanic!Reader, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:13:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23144482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mandadoration/pseuds/mandadoration
Summary: You thought that the Guild would stop sending bounty hunters after the child, but you are severely mistaken when another pops up on the proverbial doorstep of the Razor Crest. You get shot trying to protect the Child, and Cara and Mando come back only to see you bleeding out on the floor of the ship.
Relationships: Cara Dune/Original Female Character(s), Cara Dune/Reader, Cara Dune/You, The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Original Female Character(s), The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Reader, The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Reader/Cara Dune, The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/You, The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/You/Cara Dune
Series: Settle the Debt [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1650253
Comments: 2
Kudos: 201





	show your hand

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place before Raise the Stakes.

You’ve been working with the Mandalorian and Cara Dune for long enough to know what their footsteps sound like coming up the ramp to the Razor Crest. Be it rain or shine, good mood or bad mood, you can always tell who it is.

That clunky, unpracticed gait with uneven steps?

Not anyone you know.

The steady beeping of a tracking fob slowly speeding up?

Definite trouble.

You already know that Mando and Cara will scold you for being so careless and leaving the ramp open, but in your defense heat builds up in the ship really easily, and you don’t want to waste fuel keeping the air flow going. You peek out the windows up at the cockpit where you’ve been playing sabaac by yourself to see who it is, and you swear under your breath when you see a bounty hunter making their way up the ramp, and swear once more when you realize your blaster is sitting on the table in the hull downstairs. There’s no other weapons up in the cockpit.

Well, you’ve had experience with improvisation in the past.

You wonder if anyone has finally bought the dented pan from when you sent it through a previous bounty hunter’s face. 

From your tool bag, you pull out the largest, heaviest wrench you can find, something meant for the large parts that dealt with hyperdrive, hefting the weight in your hands as you consider exactly how you were going to take the invasive bounty hunter down when you hear a whoosh of a door followed by familiar cooing and babbling.

No time to think. Only act. 

Which is why you basically fall down the ladder and launch yourself at the hunter, wrapping your arms around their neck and bashing your wrench at their head, listening to the sickening crunch as you yell as intimidatingly as possible. Which wasn’t very scary at all considering that your voice cracks. The hunter lets out a garbled yell and throws you off, digging their elbow in your ribs, and you just barely manage to catch yourself before you hit your own head against some exposed pipes. Forget baby-proofing the ship. You need it more than the child at this rate. How many times have you almost chipped a tooth trying to use the refresher in the dark?

You scramble onto your hands and knees fast enough that you manage to swing your wrench again at their knee, lunging for the blaster on the table as they go down.

“Bitch!”

Before you can grab the blaster, the bounty hunter wraps a hand around your ankle, talons digging in the soft flesh, causing you to narrowly miss biting your tongue off in favor of hitting your brow bone against the edge of the table, making blood immediately well up and drip into your eyes. The wrench clatters across the ground and far out of your reach. You yelp, and kick them in the face with your other leg, hearing the soft crunch of cartilage as you claw your way out of their reach. There’s adrenaline pumping through your veins now, the combination of danger and fear mixed with sharp twinges of pain. The bounty hunter growls low and deep in their chest, grabbing your boot and yanking you back towards him.

A quick glance at the Child confirms your suspicions that they’re just watching you with interested eyes.

You grit your teeth and flip around so that you’re on your back, sitting up as quick as you can and swinging your fist at their face. Their face is a lot softer than you had initially thought, feeling akin to the skin of overripe fruit when you dig your fingers into them and it bursts, except that the skin of the bounty hunter’s face stays intact and immediately starts to bruise a bright green color. In any other circumstance, you would be completely bewildered, but if they didn’t finish you off, Mando and Cara would if you let the kid get hurt, so you tamp down any fascination with alien biology to slam the heel of your boot into their wrist and pull yourself free of their grip. It takes some effort to coordinate yourself to get your feet under you, head spinning from hitting it earlier, but you whirl around to look at the table where the blaster is.

Rather, where it was, because it isn’t there anymore.

“What the–”

You’re too bewildered and half-dazed to hear the sound of a blaster cocking, and your left leg buckles underneath you as a blaster shot goes clean through your thigh. You almost hit your head again on the edge of the table, and you think there’s blood in your mouth as you stifle a scream. But there’s your blaster, knocked onto the floor under the table, and you fumble for it, turning around and shooting the bounty hunter twice in the chest, and the once more in the head for good measure, sickly yellow blood splattering and pooling under their body before they can properly react. As soon as the last of their fingers finish their twitching, the sharp, hot pain in your thigh swells up and would’ve keeled you over if it weren’t for the fact you were already on the floor. You allow yourself one very loud, “Fuck!” before you drag your body and slam the button to the cot, shutting the door in the child’s face as you let yourself slump down and heave in pained breaths as you think about your next plan of action, head buzzing as the adrenaline starts to wean off. Your hands are shaking as you put the safety back on the blaster and set it aside.

Obviously you would have to call Mando and Cara back from whatever recon they were doing and get their asses back here before you bled out. You hope the blaster shot didn’t hit anything major; there’s a lot of blood. Actually, maybe you should try and stop the bleeding first. Or there might be more hunters and you aren’t in fit enough shape to hold anyone else back, so the sooner Cara and Mando came back, the better. But also the comms were back up in the cockpit, and you aren’t strong enough to drag yourself up a ladder with only your upper body. You really needed to start working out properly. Let’s face it, routine maintenance on the ship wasn’t cutting it. The child is making upset noises from behind the door, and shit, you actually needed to check on them to make sure nothing happened to them in the moments before you had launched yourself at the bounty hunter like some gackle bat. Then again, the button is way too high up, and you are way too tired to even think about moving from where the floor has suddenly become _very_ comfortable.

Actually, sleeping on the ground sounds like the best course of action.

—

The sound of a panicked call of your name brings you up just enough to the surface of consciousness for you to moan a response. Someone lifts you up enough to cradle you in their arms, and the feeling of the bare flesh of a hand on your face lets you know it’s Cara without opening your eyes. She tugs one of your eyes open to check on you, and you frown and try to bat her hand away, but your hand is much too heavy, so you end up burrowing your head into the crook of her arm. 

“‘s too bright,” you slur. “St… stop it.” Cara sharply pats your cheek.

“No,” she orders, “stay awake. Shit, how long were you here for?” You groan when she puts her hand on the blaster shot in your leg, toes curling in pain as tremors run up your leg.

“It hurts,” you moan.

“Good,” she says, tone curt. “I’d be more worried if it didn’t.”

“Shit,” Mando hisses, somewhere above you. Or behind you. You’re not quite sure anymore because it feels like your head is full of cotton and your ears are filled with water. Some shuffling and there’s the steady beeping of a tracking fob again. “Guild member. Someone is still out for the kid.” Cara reaches over you, tugging something free from the body that lies just over a foot away from you, yellow blood oxidized to a muddled green. When you crack your eyes open, there’s a faint sheen of blue on Cara’s face, which is set in a serious expression, before she shows whatever she’s holding up to Mando. You hear Mando huff, and as your eyes slip shut again, the last thing you hear is Cara’s wavering voice.

“The puck isn’t for the kid. It’s for _her_.”

—

When you come to, you think that death is preferable compared to the wicked headache you have.

It feels like there’s some creature in your head that’s trying to get out, and your brow bone where you’ve cracked it against the table in your tussle isn’t helping with it in the slightest. Your entire body aches, and you think your ribs are bruised from how each breath in makes your wince.

Oh, and your leg. Needless to say, it really _kriffing_ hurts. 

You make a pained noise when you try to sit up, and a figure blocks the light from the foot of the bed.

“No, no,” Cara says, “stay down.” It’s not like you can really move, save tilting your head up to look at her. There’s the slightest bit of space that she can sit down and scoot closer to you, minding your leg as she hands you a cup of water. It’s incredibly awkward. The cot itself barely fit Mando, and you were used to having more space sleeping on your mat on the floor. Still, Cara tilts the cup with utmost care, leaning over your body and cradling your head in her other hand as you take slow sips. Her brows are knotted with worry, and she catches your gaze when you blink up at her sluggishly. You push the cup away.

“What happened?” you ask her. Your voice is still thick with sleep. 

“Bounty hunter,” comes Mando’s voice. He leans against the doorway, if it can even be called that, to the cot. You really wanted to ask Mando if he would consider a more open floor plan considering how suffocated you feel, but the mood isn’t exactly appropriate. “We came back to find you bleeding over the floor.” His voice is tight, and you can see the tenseness of his shoulders despite how hazed you still feel.

“We thought that you were dead,” Cara says softly. She pushes back a strand of hair from your face. You sigh and nuzzle into the palm of her hand.

“Your lack of faith in me is disturbing,” you mumble. “I can handle myself.”

“You call that ‘handling yourself’?” Mando asks dryly, motioning to the bandages wrapped over and over again on your thigh. You can feel the familiar tingle of bacta underneath the aches. You shrug, pulling a face when it jostles your sides. 

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” you ask him. Then, “he is, right?” Cara nods.

“You did a number on him,” she says, a hint of pride in her voice. You relax.

“And the kid?”

“Asleep,” Mando answers.

“That’s good,” you sigh. “How long until we can get out of here?”

“We’re leaving in a couple of minutes.” You bolt up despite how your head spins and ribs ache.

“I have to do pre-flight checks!” you gasp. Cara puts a firm hand on your chest and pushes you back down with little resistance.

“You,” she says sternly, “are going to stay here and rest while we,” she motions to Mando and herself, “do the pre-flight checks.” You cock an eyebrow.

“When’s the last time you guys ever did a pre-flight check on the ship?” Cara looks at Mando.

“Not since–”

“Not since you hired me,” you point out. “And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve done substantial work since then. Including upgrades and new functions.” Cara has a knowing look on her face, and you’d bet that Mando does too. “You don’t know what half of this ship does anymore.” You put a hand on Cara’s wrist. “Let me do pre-flight checks.”

You know they’d give in. They always do.

Which is why a few moments later Mando and Cara somehow get you up to the cockpit, Mando carrying you there in his arms with a smug look on your face.

You’d come to regret that when you can’t get back down.


End file.
